I withdrew Simon's knife from his sheath and placed it in his hands. "If anyone sees us, then I'm your hostage."
"They'll still follow us. We won't get far, Kes."
"Trust me." That is, if I could trust Basil.
I fit Simon's key into the door, but this lock was stickier than the less commonly used door into Woodcourt.
"It's got to work," Simon said.
"It'll work. I just--"
"Stop!" a voice ordered.
Simon instantly grabbed me and put the knife to my chest. I felt his weight lean into me when he moved so suddenly. He was probably dizzy, but I hoped he'd stay on his feet. It'd be hard to justify how someone unconscious on the ground was stealing me away.
A Dallisor solider had entered the dungeons with my father--no, with Sir Henry Dallisor right behind him. I had no father. Both were at the foot of the stairs from Woodcourt, a stone's toss away. The soldier held a lever blade ready for attack. Sir Henry had a cloth to his nose, masking the smell. I wondered about him then. What sort of man shrinks at the odor of death, yet embraces a rotted soul like Endrick's?
"That's my daughter," Sir Henry said to Simon. "How dare you threaten her?"
"Stay back." Simon tilted the blade enough to let it flash against the torchlight. If they were closer, they would have seen the blunt edge was against my skin. "She's coming with me."
"Are you Halderian or Corack? Tell me so that I will know which group to round up and execute tomorrow."
"You wanted me dead, so consider me dead," I said to him. "You should thank this boy for getting rid of me."
"Oh, he will feel the weight of my gratitude." Sir Henry's voice became venomous. "This night will not pass before he will know that I have had the last word."
"Get that door unlocked," Simon muttered to me.
Sir Henry was not finished. "And I will not stop there. After you die tonight--and you are going to die tonight--I will find your people. I will send hordes of armies on giant condors, armed with disk bows, and raining fire pellets down until every last in
surgent is dead."
"You've never found us before," Simon said. "And you won't find us this time either. Not until we bring the revenge to you."
By then, I had turned the lock and pushed the door open, all the while making it appear that I was being forced to do it.
"Try to follow me and you'll find her body left behind on the trail." Simon spoke so menacingly that if I didn't know it was an idle threat, I'd have been worried.
He pushed me out the door, slamming it firmly behind him to reengage the lock. The instant we were alone, he gave me the knife and let me support his weight. I locked arms with him to help him toward the birch trees. I knew this place well. It was a thick copse that the Dallisors had preserved because of the Halderian hangings that had happened there in the early days of the War of Devastation. They were a monument, not a memorial.
A horse was waiting deep within the trees, as Basil had promised.
"How did you plan this?" Simon asked.
"You wouldn't like it if I told you. Come on!"
He grabbed the saddle horn and dragged his weight onto the horse. Then I swung into the saddle ahead of him, careful to keep my cut skirts in place, took the reins, and with a quick warning to Simon to hold on, we escaped at a full gallop.
Simon leaned against my back as we rode, to the point where he was wearing my own strength down, but whatever I felt, I knew he was worse. A few scattered stars offered what light they could, but the moon had not yet risen, our clothes were wet and muddy, and the temperature was rapidly falling. At least it was late enough at night that we made it past the Sentries' Gate without any trouble.
But sure as the rising of the sun, trouble was coming. Simon had spoken boldly during our escape, and Dallisors never made idle threats. It wasn't a question of if the condors were coming our way, only whether we'd find a safe place to hide before they did.
By comparison, my worst day in the Lava Fields was a treasure. My mind drifted back to a warm autumn day about eight months after the kidnapping, shortly after my fourteenth birthday. I had received a letter from home offering me passage to Reddengrad to continue growing up in the court of my betrothed, Sir Basil. I had taken the letter and run into the Lava Fields, until I fell on some razor-edged rock and badly cut my leg. Darrow found me there, healed the injury with his cauterizing powder, and then talked me out of sending my father a rejection letter rolled in horse dung.
"I wish he weren't my father," I'd said. "When I was with the Banished, they told me--"
Darrow's face immediately became stern, which it almost never was. "Don't say another word, Kestra. Those are dangerous thoughts."